Thursday, July 12, 2012

2NE1 released their new single “I Love You,” on July 5, marking the group’s comeback to the music scene. The song immediately topped various music charts in Korea including Daum Music, Bugs, Melon and Mnet.

On iTunes, “I Love You” entered the Top 10 Electronic Songs chart in 12
countries. It zoomed to No. 1 in Canada, Finland and Sweden. The single is No. 2 in the US, No. 5 in the United Kingdom, No. 4 in
Australia, No. 10 in Austria, No. 6 in Italy, No. 3 in The Netherlands,
No. 4 in New Zealand, No. 2 in Norway and No. 3 in Spain.

In a blog post, SPIN magazine praised “I Love You,” describing it as a “perfect summation of pop’s present and future.” SPIN’s Christopher Weingarten described 2NE1 as “K-pop heroes.”

“We love them. Well yesterday they dropped their most
recent single 'I Love You' and it's a stone doozy, a perfect summation
of pop's present and future: those Guetta-style soccer-riot synths
glowing and pulsing, ghostly background vocals creating smoke around the
neon, and a stuttering Ke$ha-gone-‘Stay Fly’ rap in English,” the post said.

Last December, SPIN magazine chose 2NE1’s second mini-album as one of the “20 Best Pop Albums of 2011.” 2NE1’s “Ugly” and “I Am the Best” were also included in SPIN’s “21 Greatest K-Pop Songs of All Time” last June.

The K-pop group will also release English and Japanese versions of “I
Love You” for their international fans, according to Korean media. 2NE1 are preparing for their “New Evolution: 2NE1 Global Tour,” which
will kick off on July 28 and 29 at the Olympics Gymnastics Hall in
Seoul.

The world tour will then go to the US with concerts on August 17 at
Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey and on August 24 at Nokia
Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles. The Japan concert will be held on Sept. 1 and 2 at the Osaka Castle Hall
in Osaka; Sept. 7 and 8 at Gaishi Hall in Nagoya; and on Sept. 11 and
12 at Yokohama Arena in Yokohama.